


Hanji's Notebook

by lightningwaltz



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Backstory, Canon levels of violence, Diary/Journal, Gen, Pre-Canon, Science Experiments, Survival, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-21 23:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a young soldier of the Scouting Legion, Hanji was once charged with the task of recording a winter scouting mission. Cue scientific observations and life-changing personal revelations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hanji's Notebook

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Masu_Trout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/gifts).



> Masu_Trout talked about loving Hanji's passion for SCIENCE!!! and that's what's always drawn me into the character too. The concept of this fic was inspired by several things 1. Ilse Langner's side story (there's something incredible about the Scouting Legion being so hungry for knowledge that one of their soldiers would be recording information up to her death... And that got me wondering what Hanji's own field notes would look like.) 2. Given how, in canon, the characters are still learning basic facts about titans... I think a lot of the knowledge the characters have about titans can be attributed to Hanji's methods and attention to detail. 3. Hanji used to hate titans as much as the next recruit, but then became infatuated with them and their mysteries. I'm just... so curious about early 20s!Hanji.
> 
> So mix all these things up, and you get me writing a story about early on in Hanji's career. I hope you enjoy this, Masu_Trout. It was incredibly fun to explore and speculate on one of my favorite characters from this series.

_[This is the notebook of Hanji Zoe, of the Scouting Legion. This is my recording of my observations during our 35th mission. I am not likely to let this out of my sight. Therefore if you come across this book while out in the lands beyond the wall... Let’s be honest here. That probably means I’ve been eaten. But if the information contained here is still legible (and clearly it is if you can see this!) return this to military headquarters upon your return to the city. Avoid reading beyond this page, because this is privileged data._

_Also, please try not to get eaten yourself._

_-Hanji Zoe]_

**ENTRY ONE**

Good, that necessary preface is out of the way. It was a little macabre to have to write, but I laughed all the same (because what else can you do?)

I bet I sound flippant. For some of us, that just comes with working in the Survey Legion. You can't help but change, if you're constantly facing death. Many of my comrades come to fear things that other people don't, or laugh at things other people fear. I'm in the latter category. My family often asks if I’m afraid out there- because I speak about things so happily- and the answer is that I’m usually not. At some point my soul seems to have rejected fear utterly. Even now I’m giddy, jittery with hatred for our enemies, and tired of these walls for caging me in. I will either die, or I'll come back alive. Those are the only two options. If it's the latter... I already know what kind of horrors I'll see. I've witnessed it all before. I don't think I can be surprised. ~~Thought wouldn't it be nice if I could be?~~

Speaking of which, I have a good memory. That's the whole point of this. My commander has tasked with recording this mission for posterity. I will do my best.

**ENTRY TWO**

This is the thing about scouting missions: they take approximately forever to leave the city. I will spare you a list of all the tasks that must be done, but suffice to say we've been at it for hours.

Something else that’s slowing us down: We have had budget cuts in the past two years. Citizens believe the walls can keep us safe, and have become complacent about the idea of living behind them. They are not willing to throw money at the military anymore, especially not on things regarded as suicide missions. If you've ignored my order to not read any further... then at least try to impress upon the government that they can't have it both ways. If they wish to keep all of humanity in a walled city, they should bolster security us to the borders and increase spending on maintenance of the walls. What they should not do is send new recruits out to die when there was no need.

You know, just a thought!

Among other things, a winter expedition means more supplies need to be packed and hauled across the fields. I can already tell this is going to slow us down. Hurray. The horses are jumpy and skittish, and it’s as if they know the stress we’re going to put them through. I hope they can manage out there, because I have grown attached to them all. I've memorized all their names and personality quirks (if you don't think a horses has a personality, clearly you've never relied on one to keep you alive.) Plus, if they all die from exposure, that will be the end of us. All the same, I can't be too resentful. Summer expeditions have all returned the same results, and titans are noticeably absent from the walls during colder times. Maybe we'll learns something useful.

Rest assured, if we wanted cold we got it. My face already feels like it might freeze off and the air tastes the way it does before snow. I’m seated on my horse right now, waiting for the order to march out, scribbling all this down furiously (the newbies are staring at me like I’m crazy but they'll soon learn there's no right or wrong way to think about all this.)

**ENTRY THREE**

We have been beyond the walls for two days now without event. I have caught sight of no titan footprints in the frozen mud, suggesting that they left the immediate area a while ago. Our other enemy is the cold, and it's been relentless. I'm not a human anymore, I'm just a walk, talking icicle.

At the moment I have very little else to report, save the seemingly endless fields, murky gray sky, and desiccated trees. (Some of us have been collecting bark, in case we run down on rations.) Everything is so barren, that I haven’t spotted any insects. They’re either dead or in hiding. That’s unfortunate. I have an aunt with a knack for eradicating people’s infestations and she’s always curious about bugs from the beyond the wall. She likes to test her poisons on them. That leads to the situation where some survivors come back home with sparkly minerals for their relatives, while I tend to haul back a jar of dead bugs.

But, really, what the hell are the titans? They don’t eat, reproduce, sleep, or even die normally. Even snakes and spiders need to consume to survive. Even the ants that congregate around bird carcasses have some kind of purpose in the food chain. But titans follow none of these patterns. And I can't stop wondering about them.

Am I "talking" a lot? I feel like I am. I think I just keep writing and writing so my fingers stay warm.

Let’s return to the things I’m seeing at this very moment: I’m keeping watch right now with another of comrades. There's no fire whatsoever; too risky. The sky is dark, vast, finally unburdened by towering walls. You can begin to see how the world is actually round and you start to think how nice it would be to keep going. It really would be nice to see all the lands that humans once ruled over.. If I look to my right I can see the city. I tried counting all the lights but it’s a bit difficult. Each represents at least one person, or family. Sometimes it seems like a lot of people, and sometimes it seems like far too few. Either way, it’s a sobering sight.

Back home, the snow melts on the ground almost instantly. Not so here. Sometimes the wind gathers up snowflakes, like dust clouds, or tears it from tree branches. Whenever that happens, people jump and relax once they realize they're safe for the moment.

**ENTRY FOUR**

Several more days of slogging on through. Several days without encountering titans. Or wildlife. Or insects. Or much of anything new. The animals appear to be in hibernation, which means they show more sense than us, ~~hahaha~~.

The sun came out yesterday. At first we all cheered but... just picture the sun shining on a mirror. Now imagine looking into said mirror for hours on end. Everyone’s wearing dark goggles, and I think they look stylish. Not that I’m biased. But I do feel like a trendsetter.

(Anecdote time: back when I joined the military, people with bad eyesight weren't permitted to join. However, I was determined, and I went through training without my glasses on. Once word got out, I was nearly given a discharge back to civilian life. Others pointed out that I'd gone through training half-blind, and wasn't that impressive? And those voices won out. Now, they're a bit more lenient with us poor nearsighted folks.) 

**ENTRY FIVE**

Whiteout. Our movements have slowed a lot. A scout is missing. We’ve made the decision to break for the night in the hopes that she returns.

I can see the ink running because of the falling snow. I’ll stop here because I don’t want to lose any of this record.

**ENTRY SIX**

The snow has stopped. The sky is so blue it almost feels like a mockery of the past few days. I measured about four inches of accumulation on the ground. People have been asking me why that’s important, so I keep saying it’s better to have more information than too little. Sometimes I smile widely when I point this out, but my lips are chapped and it makes blood run down my chin.

This makes people less likely to question me, I guess.

We went through an agonizing morning. After waiting two hours to see if the missing scout would make her way back to camp- sacrificing time spent on exploration and reconnaissance to do this- our superior made the decision to press forward and abandon her.

The missing scout is was named Janina. She was one of the newest members of our squad, but last time she killed one titan on her own, and assisted in bringing down another. She also brought along packs strong spices for her rations, and tended to share them liberally. I wish I remembered more about her.

Some are furtively happy because they know the survival statistics for these missions. The longer they survive, while others die, the more likely they are to live. (Or so they think; it's a spurious connection, but it makes people happy.) Others are anxious. There's a superstition that, if the first death is due to non-titan reasons, then it will be a particularly deadly mission.

I hear shouting. Titan tracks have been spotted.

**ENTRY EIGHT**

I haven’t felt fear beyond the wall in years. Isn’t that what I said?

I didn’t feel it today when we met with the titans at last. And I didn’t feel it when we discovered the terrible effect of the cold on our equipment despite our best efforts to prevent just that.

We killed several of the enemy, but others still survived and made a retreat ~~we still don’t know why. We still don’t know anything~~. There were three 6-meter class titans, and two 9-meter class titans. Some looked almost humans, but two of the smaller ones had strange faces that made them look more like some odd kind of statue come to life. Sometimes those of us in the Scouting Corps debate on which is worse; the ones that barely look human, or the ones that look a bit  too human. 

The results of this skirmish were typical for this sort of encounter.

But...

In the aftermath of a situation like this, it’s so easy to succumb to despair. I can describe the bare facts of what happened, but how do I convey the feelings involved in a battle like this? I don’t know how to describe what it’s like to be assessing strategy with your comrade one minute. And then, in the very next minute, a titan plucks them up. I don’t know how to describe the sound of human bones snapping between titan teeth, and your friend's blood splattering down on you.

It’s just something one has to live through. And most of our walled countrymen never will.

And you can’t feel fear in those situations because it's not useful. It doesn’t serve the dead and the information they helped gather. It doesn’t help the living who need to fight their way back to safety.

Hatred, though... Now, that can really focus a person. And I choose that instead of fear.

Today’s dead:

Luisa, Victor, Madga, Timotheus: All swallowed whole.

Immanuel is still alive, but one of the titans (a 6 meter class) bit the fingers on his right hand off, as well as part of his pam.

After hours of hasty travel, we’ve set up camp. Because, unlike titans, we need to rest. Why do they have so many traits that can overpower us? Is this part of the evolution process? Are humans on the way out? Is the food chain inexorably headed on this path?

I just asked Erwin- a scout who's been at this a few years longer than me- if he thought we were the anomaly in this world, not titans. He just kind of looked at me, but he didn't laugh it off either

**ENTRY EIGHT**

Replanning and regrouping. Immanuel’s hanging on to life by a thread. The snow has helped us treat his wounds, but our medics still whisper that infection might set in anyway.

(What kind of viruses live in a titan’s mouth? Sometimes I think they have to be cleaner than humans, but other times I think the opposite.)

There hasn’t been a storm, and that’s been something of a gift. Not just because it gives us one less thing to worry about... But it means the titans’ tracks have been preserved.

And this time we’re planning to be on the offense.

Erwin and I were sent to follow the tracks and see what we could find. Command bet a lot on the idea that the titans becoming lethargic and staying in one location until the sun comes out again. When I say 'bet a lot' I mean it; as far as anyone knew, this would either lead to useful information or two more dead scouts. There was no possible third alternative.

We were sent out without horses. I don’t think I need to say how risky this is? But there are trees, and we were outfitted with functioning maneuvering gear if we needed to make a retreat. The lack of horses made us slow, but it also enabled us to move silently for this stealth mission. We kept quiet in this way for well over an hour. Soldiers who spend a lot of time together develop an almost psychic link with one another. Words aren't necessary; you can sense what they do before they do it.

I also looked at my cloak (which draped over more layers than I’ve worn on these expeditions.) The deep red blood stains were from Timotheus, who was killed right in front of me. Here and there there are faint discolorations on the cloth, and it reminded a bit of the effects of too much bleach on clothes. During the skirmish, my arm was coated in titan blood. By all rights it should be there still, but I have only these faint marks to attest to it. I'm still not sure what all this meant, but it helped distract me from thoughts about freezing to death.

At any rate we crept our way through the forest and once across a wide plain.

When we finally found the titans again, it was absolutely incredible. There were so many clouds in the sky that it was nearly as dark as night, and that might have been having an effect. They didn’t sleep, exactly. They simply stood there (or, in some cases, lying flat on their backs.) Their eyes were open and they didn’t move. They didn’t appear tired, hungry, jubilant, or ferocious. They simply were. This was the most docile I’ve ever seen them.

Yes. Yes, yes yes. This seemed to add credence the hypothesis that many of them need sunlight. And I felt so giddy with the possibility that something could be gained, here.

I felt my feet move without me. I think I wanted to test how close I could get. There was little thought put into it. I moved forward, my mind occupied with a hunger to learn as much as I could.

...But Erwin grabbed onto my coat, and he silently made me turn around to head back to camp. I'm glad he stopped me before I revealed out location. ~~But I still wonder what more could have been learned.~~

Now I find myself seated on a horses once again, hastily recording all this. We're about to return and attack them. I have never written quicker in my life.

**ENTRY NINE**

Guess where I am?

I’m sitting in a tree for the night after many hours of battle, and some of the titans are below us, weakly clawing away. We're at a stalemate where they're not strong enough to shake us from the trees, but we're having trouble aiming our weapons at them in the darkness. I have scratches all over my face, I can feel bruises forming all over my body, and the moon is out, in case you’re wondering how I can write. I wish I had thought to toss this book to the medic team in the case of a slaughter, but I can't completely regret it. This isn’t the first time I’ve stared down a tedious, sleepless night on some godforsaken part of the battlefield. This is the first time I’ve had something but my thoughts to pass the time, and for that I'm grateful. 

Thankfully it didn’t come to slaughter today, and I have a hope of getting this book back to the city (I've heard that the commander has decided we've learned enough and that we're going back after this fight. If we survive.) All in all, it was a standard battle, both in terms of outcome and strategy. The titans’ lethargy gave us the advantage, but once they began to move, they were still plenty ferocious. We have two more dead: Filip and ESther. She wasn’t swallowed whole, but her skull was crushed beneath a 9-meter class’s teeth, and another 9-meter class pulled apart her limbs before it... possibly realized she was already dead. Hard to tell when their mannerisms are so unusual.

(Observation: They seem to want us alive? I wonder if they enjoy seeing fear but that's all speculation)

As for Filip... he was presumed dead. When night fell and many of the titans were gone (dead or fled) we took the chance to climb into the tall trees for the night time hours, leaving the dead where they were. Except Filip started moaning and.. it’s cold. So incredibly cold. It was the prime opportunity for hypothermia to set in, and also prime opportunity for a titan to stop by for an easy snack. Which one eventually did.

(This one left the other body parts alone. I really think they want us alive. **What does it mean?** )

Anyway, we're not meant to sleep. We're meant to keep watch... And I keep barreling on, moving ahead of today’s most important thing. I want to talk about it, but how can I possibly do it justice?

You see, I killed the titan that stopped to feast on Esther’s corpse. I sliced so hard through the nape of its neck that the head toppled off in a spray of bright red blood. It landed right in front of my boots, and my euphoria took shape in one single thought: **This one will never kill again**.

So I kicked the head and it went flying.

It didn’t roll a few meters. It just went straight up, in arc, like I was kicking something as insubstantial as a melon.

I think it might even have been hollow.

I just... don’t understand. I don’t understand now, and I didn’t understand then on the battlefield. I wanted to reach out and grab onto the bits of titan corpse, to study them, find easy answers for how it could be possibly be so deadly and yet so goddamn light. How can anything be this physically insubstantial, yet cause so much devastation?

I've been so consumed (hah!) by this riddle that I can scarcely remember the rest of the battle, or the retreat to the trees. I’ve held onto bits of dead human bodies before- we try to bring them back for the families- and without exception they were heavier than the titan head I kicked today. I keep staring into the darkness, where the titan fell and essentially evaporated.

What are the titans? I’ve talked about this before. I've wondered about this for years. But now I'm euphoric with the realization that I might have always been asking the wrong question.

For years the Survey Corps has focused on how to fight titans.

But doesn’t that seem like starting in the middle of a book and scrambling to figure out basic facts about what came before? Because it does to me. I wonder... I wonder... And I can't stop.

ENTRY TEN

We've survived the night. We've killed all the titans in the area and none of our forces died. The rumors are true, too. We're heading home. Our commander has set up flares to the parts of our medic team that are miles away, letting them know the results of our fight, and our plans from here on out. Hopefully those of us who survived will make it back in one piece. 

We didn't leave right away. Just before we left the battlefield, I roamed around looking for bits of titan flesh, but all of that had long since evaporated away. There were, however, bones everywhere. In some places were limbs we'd chopped off (it's useless for killing them, but it can slow them down. It's a good technique in a pinch.) In other places were entire skeletons. The cold seems to preserve those for a little longer than, say, their muscles and hair.

After rooting around, I found the skull of the titan I killed yesterday. I picked it up and stared right into the holes where its eyes used to be. I even took off my gloves to touch the surface, even though I wondered if my skin would freeze to it. Titan bone feels a bit more like glass than anything else. My memory did not lie; it was lighter than it should be given what I know of physics and science.

But just because the titans defy human logic doesn't mean they don't have their own logic. And we don't have to remain ignorant.

So there I stood, the wind making my face so cold it felt like I was on fire, and surrounded by the gruesome detritus of battle. Clinging to the impossible skull of my enemy. And I laughed because I realized there are still ways for a human to be powerful.

"We're leaving, Hanji. Time to say goodbye to your new friend." I remember Erwin saying that. 

The whole skull would, indeed, be difficult to transport. In the end I removed it's jaw and took that with me. 

**ENTRY ELEVEN**

We might be determined, now, to get home but it can't be accomplished in a day. Still, we're doggedly marching on. We've rendezvoused with the rest of the medic team, to learn that they've all survived. So has Immanuel. Missing a hand means he's going to be discharged from the army, and he seems dispirited by that. Others murmur about this jealously until someone tells them that they should shut up; they've made the choice to join the Survey Corps and they have to live and die with it.

This is all talk I've heard before. Happens every time we trudge home.

I've been focusing on my prize from the battlefield. 

The cold has been preserving my titan's jawbone, but it's not halting the deterioration completely. Take its teeth; the enamel has faded away, exposing the yellowish dentin. That's been _flaking_ away, which strikes me as seriously unusual. Since it seems like evaporation is inevitable, I've been poking around with my knife below that layer. I see nothing resembling nerves. The teeth seem to be made up of surprisingly weak material, but the lack of nerves at least allows the titans to feed without pain. This might be the first thing I've ever heard about the titans that almost makes sense. 

The bone is taking longer to disappear... It's still at the calcified area. Still, I shook it just now and there was a strange sloshy noise. Like the spongy bone has melted! The sound reminds me of snow once the sun comes out!

I'm smiling like an idiot again. ~~I think people grin this way when they fall in love~~.

**ENTRY TWELVE**

Home at last. 

Before I hand this book over, I'll conclude this way; as a record of events, I'll be the first to admit this was far too personal, and drifted too often into speculation. However, that's important in its own right. We don't know much about titans, but we don't have to remain uninformed. I'm willing to risk my life until we know all there is to know. 

Hell, I'll even be happy to do it!


End file.
